


Howard Moon's Embarrassing Evening

by Alvitr



Series: The Accidental Relationship [1]
Category: The Mighty Boosh (TV)
Genre: M/M, Voyeurism, convenient magical mishaps, sex with strangers, very minor appearance of Bunny from Bunny & the Bull
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-30
Updated: 2015-09-30
Packaged: 2018-04-24 05:04:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4906600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alvitr/pseuds/Alvitr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Howard decides to play a trick on Vince and mucks it up.</p>
<p>Originally written in November 2010.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Howard Moon's Embarrassing Evening

1.   
  
Howard had felt somewhat resentful ever since Vince told him that he wanted his own room. How long had they shared a room together? Years and years! And sure, Naboo had found there was actually an extra room in the flat (the door had been covered up all this time by a ceiling-to-floor  _Star Wars_  poster), but they could have used it for any number of things. Howard had been particularly fond of the idea of turning it into a library. But no, Vince jumped at the chance. In a thrice he'd gotten Bollo to clean it, and had painted the walls a nauseating purple and turquoise, and was moving all his possessions in there, leaving Howard in their old room, which, though he'd frequently thought it was far too small for two people and loved to complain that Vince was encroaching on his space, now seemed exceptionally barren and empty.  
  
All right, so maybe Vince had made the logical choice, though "logic" was a word Howard did not like to use in association with Vince, considering the fact that when addressed with the mere words "Let's think about this for a second," he immediately came down with a migraine. It didn't mean Howard had to like it. He and Vince had some of their best times hanging out in their room. At work, they were around other people (and on some occasions those people were actually customers, and not monsters, intruders, or Naboo and Bollo), and so Howard found it hard to always maintain Vince's attention, precious commodity that it was. Off work, Vince liked to go off on his own, or at least, these days he did. It was at night, before they went to sleep, that Howard found he got his best quality Vince Time (he had in fact estimated this one day using a stopwatch and even compiled the data into a tidy pie chart for his own perusal). Vince was sleepy, and therefore more relaxed and less critical. Howard would make him tea or hot chocolate which always earned a few points for affection, and Vince was more lenient when Howard told him to do things like not push his socks off under the covers and then kick them out onto the floor. And sometimes they'd do the things that they only did with each other – crimps and wild stories and silly games that were only amusing to themselves.   
  
Nobody, Howard often thought smugly, not a single one of Vince's other  _friends_ , his hangers-on and his doppelgangers, knew Vince the way he did. Oh yes, they went way back, he and Vince. And nobody could get between the two of them.  
  
2.  
  
"I don't understand, Vince," Howard said. "I thought you liked sharing a room with me. Didn't you say once you didn't like sleeping in a room alone?  _Silence is creepy?_ "  
  
"Oh," Vince said, unpacking and arranging what seemed to Howard to be many hundreds of tubes and jars on his vanity, "well, that was ages ago. I'm over it now. Plus," he continued over Howard's snort of derision, "you put a little music on before you go to bed, it's not a problem, really."  
  
Howard was offended at the idea that  _he_  could be replaced by music, especially the moronic noises Vince called  _music_. He crossed his arms and scowled.   
  
"Don't make that face," Vince said flippantly. "Anyway, Christy, Howard, I need a bit of space. It's hard to have a real social life when I'm rooming with my mate."  
  
"What do you mean by that?"  
  
"Don't be dense, Howard."  
  
 _That's rich, coming from you._  "I don't impede your  _social life_ , Vince." Howard waved his hands around in mock air quotes.  
  
Vince groaned and turned around to meet him. "Look, Howard, I can't bring anybody home of a night like this! I've always got to go to their place instead. It's well awkward. Even you have to see that!"  
  
Howard had gone quite still. It hadn't occurred to him that Vince might offer this as a potential explanation. In general, Howard preferred to pretend that Vince did not have a sex life, perhaps out of jealousy – not that he'd ever admit it. Howard could have casual sex with strangers, too, if he wanted, of course. He just wasn't a slave to passion, that was all. Vince, however, clearly had no shame, and Howard allowed himself to feel the mellow pain of betrayal for a minute.   
  
"Well," Howard said at last, "I should have known you'd put your chances of getting your leg over someone above our friendship. Typical."  
  
Rolling his eyes, Vince turned away from him. "Whatever, Howard."  
  
For a few minutes, Howard stood there, watching as Vince carried dry cleaning bags in his closet, feeling silly. He tried to say something once or twice, but Vince always seemed to pivot away sharply or disappear into the darkness of the closet right at that moment, making it difficult to get his attention. And so finally, he turned away and walked out of the room, attempting, with what little scraps of dignity he had left, to look like he had some important business to carry out. Halfway down the hall, he heard Vince walk over to the bedroom door and shut it after him.  
  
3.  
  
One week later, Vince was firmly ensconced in the spare bedroom, and was clearly making good use of it, for he'd brought people home twice already. Howard had not seen his paramours, because they got home quite late and left surprisingly early. He'd heard them, though, much to his horror.   
  
He was more than a little annoyed about it. When Vince would emerge from his bedroom later the next day, sleepy-eyed and smug, Howard would do his best to ignore him. He couldn't allow himself to even make a passive-aggressive dig about the atrociously late hour he was arriving in the shop, or his incredible laziness. If he started, he might just lose control, and it would become a full-blown argument, and more than just the sheer fear of confrontation, he couldn't allow Vince to know just how much this all was bothering him.  
  
Then he had his big idea.  
  
He'd play a little trick on Vince – nothing too major, just something a little evil. Something to embarrass him in front of whoever he brought home that night. Something to take him down a notch or two.  
  
After discarding several very pedestrian ideas for this plan, Howard decided that this situation called for magical intervention – namely, something from Naboo. Of course, he couldn't ask Naboo to give him something to use – besides the fact that it would mean the trick would get easily traced back to him, there was also that, frankly, if Howard was set on fire, Naboo would not even spit on him to put him out.   
  
Luckily, Naboo and Bollo were leaving on a bender with the council early that evening. Howard waited impatiently while Vince got ready to go out himself. It seemed to take forever. In actual fact it took two-and-a-half hours. By the time Vince pranced out of his room, grabbed his coat off the hook by the door, and left without saying a word, Howard was a little delirious with nerves, because now he'd had time to think about all the bad ways this plan could turn out. However, the sound of Vince cheerfully and rudely slamming the door and clip-clopping down the stairs brought him back to his original feeling of purpose.  
  
"Let's do this," he mumbled to himself, and headed off in the direction of Naboo's room.  
  
4.  
  
He wasn't exactly sure what kind of trick he should pull on Vince. He didn't want to do anything outright malicious or harmful to him. Therefore a great deal of Naboo's magic was struck right out. He rejected anything that might cause some kind of physical alteration, because that seemed like it might bloody traumatize Vince; anything that might make him sick; anything that could hurt him.  
  
 _This is ridiculous,_  he thought,  _I can't even play a trick on him. It's not as if he'd care if he was doing it to me._  
  
He thought of all the awful pranks Vince had pulled on him over the years, and found he was almost shaking with anger at the memories. He was very nearly about to pick something which would be downright nasty when suddenly he found the perfect trick. It would have the effect of ruining any of Vince's fun tonight, cause him some degree of embarrassment, and best of all, Vince would need Howard to rescue him.   
  
All it did was cause a temporary paralysis. You laid this little rug on the floor, and the person who stepped on it would fall over and be completely unable to move or speak. Ha, but that would give Vince's friend tonight quite a scare! Then he'd have to rush and get Howard, and Howard would save the day. The rug itself had the added feature of blending in seamlessly with its surroundings. And then he'd get rid of the rug before anyone even knew it was there. It was perfect.  
  
Howard was not very good at concocting plans.   
  
As he carried the bundled up rug into Vince's room, he noticed that there was a bit of the directions that was smudged; he couldn't quite make out what it said.  _Hmmm._  He dropped the instructions on Vince's bed and then tried to figure out what the best place to put the rug might be. Somewhere Vince would very likely step. He wandered around, holding the rug out and imagining it here or there, before finally deciding to put it just in between the door and the bed. Very carefully, he spread it out on the floor, adjusting it about ten times to make sure it had maximum coverage and Vince was unlikely to somehow miss it. Finally satisfied, he straightened up and dusted his hands off. It was then he realized that he'd left the directions for the rug on the bed.  
  
 _Damn it_ , he thought,  _I can't leave it there, can I? I'll get found out._  He looked around on the floor frantically; where was the rug? He couldn't tell! He grimaced.  _If I just take a leap over to the bed, I'll get by all right,_  he thought, and took a deep breath and jumped.  
  
He landed next to the bed fine, and snatched up the directions, folded them and put them in his pocket. Smiling with triumph, he turned around and prepared to leap back again to safety. But this time, he stumbled over something, shuffling to the side to regain his balance. He managed to steady himself, and then –  
  
\-- all of a sudden he felt a creeping, numbing sensation rising from the soles of his feet, up his calves, shooting rapidly towards his torso –  
  
"Oh,  _damn it_ ," he swore vehemently, and fell over, stiff, with a thud.  
  
5.  
  
For a few minutes he lay there, unable to believe his horrible luck. He couldn't be in a more terrible situation, he decided. Here he was, caught in his own trap. When Vince came home in a few hours, he'd find Howard there, and have a huge laugh at him; very likely Howard would never hear the end of it. He was steaming. How could he have been so careless? What had he tripped over, anyway? He focused his eyes in the dim light of the bedroom. He'd fallen in a weird position, curled up on his side, halfway facing the bed. He could just see the spot where he'd stumbled.  _Socks,_  Howard thought,  _of course. Vince's socks. He always does that. He always leaves his things lying about! Even when he's not here he ruins everything I try to do!_  
  
Gradually he tried to regulate his temper. There was nothing for it. He was stuck here. Certain doom awaited him. He would just have to wait it out.  
  
Time seemed to creep by at a snail's pace. He couldn't even blink his eyes; he even realized that he wasn't actually breathing, either. It was ... horrible. The more and more time he had to dwell on it, the more badly he felt about coming up with this plan at all. He wouldn't have wanted to subject Vince to this. Vince would have hated him for it!   
  
He must look, he realized, like he was actually dead. Would Vince think that when he found him? He conjured up a scene in his mind: Vince screaming in shock when he opened the door, dropping down on his knees in front of Howard, trying to shake him, dissolving into sobs. It was very moving. If Howard could, he would have shed a tear for Vince's spirited mourning.   
  
That said, how would Vince know that he  _wasn't_  dead? The directions were in his pocket, after all. The magic would wear off after awhile, but all sorts of terrible things could happen in the meantime. Howard began to feel quite worried.  
  
And so, with all of these concerns dancing around inside of his head, Howard drifted off to sleep.  
  
6.  
  
He was awoken some time later by a sound that was akin to an angry bull set loose in a china shop. Somebody, or rather, somebodies, were making their way, loudly, up the stairs from the shop. The door to the flat opened, and he heard stifled laughter – Vince's own childish cackle accompanied by a deeper, rougher chuckle, and then urgent, but equally as loud  _shooshing_. Their voices just a bit quieter, they stumbled into the hallway and towards Vince's bedroom door. Howard heard Vince say, "Don't make a lot noise, yeah? Don't want to wake up my flatmates ... what's your name again? Benny? Did I get that right?"  
  
"No," said his companion good-naturedly, "but it don't matter. You can call me anythin' you like, darlin'."  
  
Howard heard the door open behind him, and mentally braced himself; but Vince didn't turn on the light or make much progress into the bedroom, and after a moment of confusion, he heard the sound of the two of them kissing. It sounded very wet. Howard was mildly disgusted, and actually found himself looking forward to being found out just so he wouldn't have to witness anymore of this.   
  
"Come on, you," Vince said, finally, and the door shut. He heard Vince fumbling with the lamp.  _Here it comes!_  Howard thought as the room flooded with light.  
  
But ... nothing happened. Vince was murmuring something to the other man, and they were kissing again. But – surely they must see him! They couldn't be that drunk, could they? Vince laughed again, and the two of them began move across the room, in the direction of Vince's bed. Howard had no idea what was going on. There was no way they could miss him. He was stretched out across the bloody floor, for heaven's sake – and now they were so close –  
  
Pain suddenly blossomed in Howard's head, and Vince fell over on top of him. He'd tripped. He tripped over Howard's  _head_!  
  
" _Ow_ ," Vince said. "What the hell did I trip over? I ain't that drunk, am I?"   
  
His guest had hurried over to him, somehow avoiding Howard's body by chance. "You all right there, buddy?" he asked. Howard got his first good look at him. He was tall and wiry, with a headful of wildly curly blond hair, and Christ, but he looked dirty. Howard was perplexed and momentarily distracted from his own peculiar situation.  _This_  was the sort of lover Vince wanted?  
  
"Yeah, think so," Vince said, standing up. He looked down, right at the spot Howard was lying, and frowned. "Funny," he said.  
  
Howard was extremely confused. It was almost like –  
  
It was like –  
  
 _Invisible,_  Howard thought,  _I'm bloody invisible. It didn't say that would happen! Did it?_  He remembered the spot in the directions that had been illegible, and inwardly groaned.  _Oh hell._  
  
"Never mind that, baby," Vince's bloke was saying now. Howard wished he could roll his eyes, or at least avert them. The guy was sliding his hands over Vince's hips and kissing his neck. Vince blinked and finally dragged his eyes away from where Howard was lying on the floor, and smirked.   
  
"Gettin' impatient, yeah?" he asked, teasingly. He ran his hands over the guy's shoulders, as though he were massaging them, and then pushed him back onto the bed. "Well, you'll have to wait a little longer. Stay right there."  
  
"Yes, sir," the man said cheerfully. Vince was unzipping his leather jacket, and as he pulled it off, he turned his head back and looked again, pointedly, at the place where he'd tripped, his brow furrowed, as though he were thinking very hard, though Howard knew from long experience with Vince that such a look was purely suggestive of actual thought processes when it came to Vince. Still, being pinned under that stare, in such a vulnerable position, in a place he surely should not be, was excruciating to Howard. He felt for sure that Vince must see him, but clearly he did not.   
  
Vince let the jacket fall to the ground, and the man on the bed let out an appreciative sigh. "Don't stop now." His head still turned backward, Howard noticed Vince rolling his eyes, before smiling and turning back.   
  
"Thought I told you to cool it. I'm in charge here," Vince said. He hooked a thumb in one belt loop of his trousers and tugged on it, revealing more of his jutting hip bone.  
  
"Sure you are, darlin'," the guy said, a cocky sound in his voice, the sort of tone one uses when they know they're the ones really in charge, but are generous enough to let you think otherwise. "Just appreciatin' what you got to offer, that's all."  
  
Vince snorted, and then pulled his shirt up over his head in a quick movement, and threw it behind him. It sailed over Howard's body and landed near his legs, a bit of it draped over his shin. Despite not being able to move, he could still feel it, slightly warm from being against Vince's skin only moments ago. Vince was climbing on the bed now, one knee on either side of the other man's legs, and he was grabbing his hands and pulling them up to rest on his pelvis, and unzip his fly ...  
  
At this point, Howard began to wish he'd tried harder during those two weeks when he decided he ought to take up meditation. Now, as things began to get a bit adult on the bed, Howard tried to make his sight go fuzzy and vague, and distract himself with all sorts of nice, unsexy thoughts. Corduroy. Crisp, colorful squares of sticky notes. Lentil soup.  
  
"Who's in charge now, huh?" the man said, laughing, disturbing Howard's carefully constructed calm. He was on top now, sitting between Vince's legs, in the meantime Vince had got completely naked, and had one leg hooked over the other's shoulder. He turned his head to the side, giving Howard full view of his face, and smiled slyly. Then his face lost all force of personality as he abruptly moaned.  
  
"Jesus," he managed between gasps, "give me a bit of warning, all right?"  
  
The man only smiled toothily, and gave a powerful thrust, causing Vince to arch his back and shout.  
  
 _Oh God,_  Howard thought in a panic,  _oh shit, how do I get myself into messes like this?_  He tried again to distract his mind, but the pair were making so much noise that it was even harder than before. Jesus Christ. Here was his best friend, getting frisky with a guy who looked like he slept in a sardine tin, for some Godforsaken reason – Vince  _must_  be drunk out of his mind, Howard thought, or his much vaunted taste was a little less pristine than he pretended.  _I mean, I'm practically an Adonis compared to him,_  Howard thought suddenly, and felt a double-edged sword of guilt slide through his guts – on the one hand, at the stark betrayal of himself and the belief that he was Adonis-material already – on the other, that he was actually comparing himself to a man who was, at this very moment, rutting with Vince on the bed like a bloody animal. _What am I thinking?_  he wondered in horror, and tried to unsuccessfully scrub from his mind the image of Vince, now hanging half off the bed and holding onto his partner's shoulders for dear life, his head tilted back and his reddened face about two feet, bare minimum, from Howard's own. There was another feeling, other than the guilt and the disgust, creeping up through him now. He was perplexed as to what it was; then Vince opened his eyes, so that he appeared to be looking directly into Howard's, though in reality they were unseeing. It was jealousy.  
  
7.  
  
It seemed to be finally over. The man was snoring in the bed. Howard hoped Vince would fall asleep, too; then he'd just have to wait out the spell and he could, hopefully, sneak out of the room with his dignity intact, even if his sanity wasn't. But Vince wasn't falling asleep. He was twisting and turning in the bed, occasionally letting out a long sigh. Finally, he sat up, and with a look of distaste, flung the duvet over the sleeping form of his lover. He got up from the bed and walked naked (it was the first full look at him Howard really got, the other times he'd been mostly covered up by body parts and such) out of the line of Howard's vision. A drawer opened. He came back, pulling on pants as he went, and then knelt in front of his stereo, and began looking through his CDs. He selected one and put it on, turning the volume down low, so that you could just barely hear it, and let his head rest against the speaker.  
  
 _Didn't know what time it was, the lights were low.  
I leaned back on my radio.  
Some cat was laying down some rock 'n roll,  
"Lotta soul," he said._  
  
Vince smiled and rubbed his face briskly; the make-up Howard wished he wouldn’t wear so much was smudged and messy. He stood up and wandered over to the bed and tugged on his pillow. The man sleeping in his bed made a grumbling noise and pulled back on it. Vince frowned and snatched it away with force. Howard would wondered if the guy would wake up, but he was back to snoring in a second. Vince dropped the pillow on the floor in front of the bed – between the bed and Howard, in fact – and then mimicked it, curling up on the floor. Howard watched him curiously. His eyes were half-closed, and his mouth was moving. He was singing along with the song.  
  
 _There's a starman waiting in the sky,  
He'd like to come and meet us,  
But he thinks he'd blow our minds._  
  
Vince closed his eyes completely, and hugged himself; by the time the song was over, he was asleep.  
  
 _Silence is creepy, eh, Vince?_  Howard thought, with a mixture of bitterness and affection. Vince's sleeping face was deeply peaceful, emotionless, beautiful. Howard watched it as he fell asleep himself.  
  
8.  
  
When he woke up, there was a hand on his shoulder.  
  
"Vince!" he said in horror, and with that knew for certain that the spell had worn off, and he could move. He sat up in a hurry. Vince cupped his chin in his hand and grinned.  
  
"I – well – you see –" He tried to come up with an explanation.  _I came in to check on you and suffered a mild seizure?_  Then Vince held up something in one hand. It was the folded up directions to the spell. "Ah," he said, "how did you get that?"  
  
"Found it," Vince said. "I did some pokin' around while you were snoozin'." Howard was suddenly assaulted with the image of Vince feeling around his sleeping body, finally sliding his hand into his back pocket and pulling out the paper. His neck got hot.  
  
"Did you enjoy the show?" Vince asked, in a falsely innocent tone.  
  
"Vince – I – I'm sorry –" Howard started, and then something about the patently evil expression on Vince's face made him stop. "Wait – did you – _know_?"  
  
Vince sat up, and ran a hand through his sleep-crazy hair. "Not exactly," he said, "but I knew somethin' was up, after I tripped. Plus, you'd been actin' all weird before I left, anyway. And before I went to sleep, I noticed where my shirt had fallen." He smirked and pointed. Howard saw that his damn t-shirt was tangled up in his legs even now. He frowned and picked it up and threw it at Vince, who merely laughed and, turning right-side out, pulled it on.  
  
"Very funny," Howard said. "I'm glad you enjoyed yourself."  
  
"Don't get all twisted up in indignation, Howard," Vince said. "You're the one who was trying to pull a right nasty trick on me." He waved the directions around. "Where's that rug, anyway?"  
  
Howard blinked and looked down at the floor, startled. "I – oh shit, don't move – I can't see where it is –"  
  
Vince sighed and got down on his hands and knees, and very carefully slid his fingers along the carpet until he found where the rug's edge was, blended in perfectly with his surroundings. He picked it up and handed it to Howard with the directions. Howard took them, shamefaced, and bunched them up in his hands.   
  
"You'd better get that back to Naboo's room right quick," Vince said, turning away towards his bed, which Howard noted was blessedly empty.  
  
"Aren't you mad at me?" Howard said.  
  
Vince shrugged. "Expect you're madder at yourself, really. And that's a lot better." He started pulling all his sheets off the bed.  
  
"Where ... uh ... where's your bloke?"  
  
"Left awhile ago. Said he had a race to bet on. Why? You interested in him?" Vince looked back and raised an eyebrow.  
  
"God no," Howard said. "Don't know what you were thinking, Vince."  
  
Vince mumbled something under his breath that Howard couldn't hear; he was about to tell him to speak up when something occurred to him. "Wait a second – you said he left a bit ago – was this  _before_  or  _after_  the spell wore off?"  
  
"After," Vince said even-handedly.  
  
"After?! You mean he saw me?"  
  
"Sure," Vince replied. "Man of your stature's a bit hard to miss, Howard."  
  
" _What did you say?_ "  
  
"It's all right, calm down. Told him you were my toy bear." Vince bundled up his sheets and blanket and held them out to Howard. "Hey, think you could wash these for me?"  
  
Howard had already left the room. Vince sighed. "I hate post-sex laundry."


End file.
